The House of a Thousand Candles by Meredith Nicholson (read any book txt) 📕
I was restless under this recital. My father's estate had been of respectable size, and I had dissipated the whole of it. My conscience pricked me as I recalled an item of forty thousand dollars that I had spent--somewhat grandly--on an expedition that I led, with considerable satisfaction to myself, at least, through the Sudan. But Pickering's words amazed me.
"Let me understand you," I said, bending toward him. "My grandfather was supposed to be rich, and yet you tell me you find little property. Sister Theresa got money from him to help build a school. How much
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across the hearth. All the books seemed related to architecture;
German and French works stood side by side
among those by English and American authorities. I
found archaeology represented in a division where all
the titles were Latin or Italian. I opened several cabinets
that contained sketches and drawings, all in careful
order; and in another I found an elaborate card
catalogue, evidently the work of a practised hand. The
minute examination was too much for me; I threw
myself into a great chair that might have been spoil
from a cathedral, satisfied to enjoy the general effect.
To find an apartment so handsome and so marked by
good taste in the midst of an Indiana wood, staggered
me. To be sure, in approaching the house I had seen
only a dark bulk that conveyed no sense of its character
or proportions; and certainly the entrance hall
had not prepared me for the beauty of this room. I was
so lost in contemplation that I did not hear a door open
behind me. The respectful, mournful voice of Bates
announced:
“There’s a bite ready for you, sir.”
I followed him through the hall to a small high-wainscoted
room where a table was simply set.
“This is what Mr. Glenarm called the refectory. The
dining-room, on the other side of the house, is unfinished.
He took his own meals here. The library was the
main thing with him. He never lived to finish the house,
—more’s the pity, sir. He would have made something
very handsome of it if he’d had a few years more. But
he hoped, sir, that you’d see it completed. It was his
wish, sir.”
“Yes, to be sure,” I replied.
He brought cold fowl and a salad, and produced a
bit of Stilton of unmistakable authenticity.
“I trust the ale is cooled to your liking. It’s your
grandfather’s favorite, if I may say it, sir.”
I liked the fellow’s humility. He served me with a
grave deference and an accustomed hand. Candles in
crystal holders shed an agreeable light upon the table;
the room was snug and comfortable, and hickory logs
in a small fireplace crackled cheerily. If my grandfather
had designed to punish me, with loneliness as
his weapon, his shade, if it lurked near, must have
been grievously disappointed. I had long been inured
to my own society. I had often eaten my bread alone,
and I found a pleasure in the quiet of the strange unknown
house. There stole over me, too, the satisfaction
that I was at last obeying a wish of my grandfather’s,
that I was doing something he would have me do. I
was touched by the traces everywhere of his interest
in what was to him the art of arts; there was something
quite fine in his devotion to it. The little refectory
had its air of distinction, though it was without
decoration. There had been, we always said in the
family, something whimsical or even morbid in my
grandsire’s devotion to architecture; but I felt that it
had really appealed to something dignified and noble
in his own mind and character, and a gentler mood
than I had known in years possessed my heart. He had
asked little of me, and I determined that in that little
I would not fail.
Bates gave me my coffee, put matches within reach
and left the room. I drew out my cigarette case and
was holding it half-opened, when the glass in the window
back of me cracked sharply, a bullet whistled over
my head, struck the opposite wall and fell, flattened
and marred, on the table under my hand.
A VOICE FROM THE LAKE
I ran to the window and peered out into the night.
The wood through which we had approached the house
seemed to encompass it. The branches of a great tree
brushed the panes. I was tugging at the fastening of
the window when I became aware of Bates at my elbow.
“Did something happen, sir?”
His unbroken calm angered me. Some one had fired
at me through a window and I had narrowly escaped
being shot. I resented the unconcern with which this
servant accepted the situation.
“Nothing worth mentioning. Somebody tried to assassinate
me, that’s all,” I said, in a voice that failed
to be calmly ironical. I was still fumbling at the catch
of the window.
“Allow me, sir,”—and he threw up the sash with an
ease that increased my irritation.
I leaned out and tried to find some clue to my assailant.
Bates opened another window and surveyed the
dark landscape with me.
“It was a shot from without, was it, sir?”
“Of course it was; you didn’t suppose I shot at myself,
did you?”
He examined the broken pane and picked up the bullet
from the table.
“It’s a rifle-ball, I should say.”
The bullet was half-flattened by its contact with the
wall. It was a cartridge ball of large caliber and might
have been fired from either rifle or pistol.
“It’s very unusual, sir!” I wheeled upon him angrily
and found him fumbling with the bit of metal, a
troubled look in his face. He at once continued, as
though anxious to allay my fears. “Quite accidental,
most likely. Probably boys on the lake are shooting at
ducks.”
I laughed out so suddenly that Bates started back in
alarm.
“You idiot!” I roared, seizing him by the collar with
both hands and shaking him fiercely. “You fool! Do the
people around here shoot ducks at night? Do they
shoot water-fowl with elephant guns and fire at people
through windows just for fun?”
I threw him back against the table so that it leaped
away from him, and he fell prone on the floor.
“Get up!” I commanded, “and fetch a lantern.”
He said nothing, but did as I bade him. We traversed
the long cheerless hall to the front door, and I sent him
before me into the woodland. My notions of the geography
of the region were the vaguest, but I wished to
examine for myself the premises that evidently contained
a dangerous prowler. I was very angry and my
rage increased as I followed Bates, who had suddenly
retired within himself. We stood soon beneath the
lights of the refectory window.
The ground was covered with leaves which broke
crisply under our feet.
“What lies beyond here?” I demanded.
“About a quarter of mile of woods, sir, and then the
lake.”
“Go ahead,” I ordered, “straight to the lake.”
I was soon stumbling through rough underbrush similar
to that through which we had approached the house.
Bates swung along confidently enough ahead of me,
pausing occasionally to hold back the branches. I began
to feel, as my rage abated, that I had set out on a foolish
undertaking. I was utterly at sea as to the character of
the grounds; I was following a man whom I had not
seen until two hours before, and whom I began to suspect
of all manner of designs upon me. It was wholly
unlikely that the person who had fired into the windows
would lurk about, and, moreover, the light of the lantern,
the crack of the leaves and the breaking of the
boughs advertised our approach loudly. I am, however,
a person given to steadfastness in error, if nothing else,
and I plunged along behind my guide with a grim determination
to reach the margin of the lake, if for no
other reason than to exercise my authority over the
custodian of this strange estate.
A bush slapped me sharply and I stopped to rub the
sting from my face.
“Are you hurt, sir?” asked Bates solicitously, turning
with the lantern.
“Of course not,” I snapped. “I’m having the time
of my life. Are there no paths in this jungle?”
“Not through here, sir. It was Mr. Glenarm’s idea
not to disturb the wood at all. He was very fond of
walking through the timber.”
“Not at night, I hope! Where are we now?”
“Quite near the lake, sir.”
“Then go on.”
I was out of patience with Bates, with the pathless
woodland, and, I must confess, with the spirit of John
Marshall Glenarm, my grandfather.
We came out presently upon a gravelly beach, and
Bates stamped suddenly on planking.
“This is the Glenarm dock, sir; and that’s the boat-house.”
He waved his lantern toward a low structure that rose
dark beside us. As we stood silent, peering out into the
starlight, I heard distinctly the dip of a paddle and the
soft gliding motion of a canoe.
“It’s a boat, sir,” whispered Bates, hiding the lantern
under his coat.
I brushed past him and crept to the end of the dock.
The paddle dipped on silently and evenly in the still
water, but the sound grew fainter. A canoe is the most
graceful, the most sensitive, the most inexplicable contrivance
of man. With its paddle you may dip up stars
along quiet shores or steal into the very harbor of
dreams. I knew that furtive splash instantly, and knew
that a trained hand wielded the paddle. My boyhood
summers in the Maine woods were not, I frequently
find, wholly wasted.
The owner of the canoe had evidently stolen close to
the Glenarm dock, and had made off when alarmed by
the noise of our approach through the wood.
“Have you a boat here?”
“The boat-house is locked and I haven’t the key with
me, sir,” he replied without excitement.
“Of course you haven’t it,” I snapped, full of anger
at his tone of irreproachable respect, and at my own
helplessness. I had not even seen the place by daylight,
and the woodland behind me and the lake at my feet
were things of shadow and mystery. In my rage I
stamped my foot.
“Lead the way back,” I roared.
I had turned toward the woodland when suddenly
there stole across the water a voice—a woman’s voice,
deep, musical and deliberate.
“Really, I shouldn’t be so angry if I were you!” it
said, with a lingering note on the word angry.
“Who are you? What are you doing there?” I bawled.
“Just enjoying a little tranquil thought!” was the
drawling, mocking reply.
Far out upon the water I heard the dip and glide of
the canoe, and saw faintly its outline for a moment;
then it was gone. The lake, the surrounding wood, were
an unknown world—the canoe, a boat of dreams. Then
again came the voice:
“Good night, merry gentlemen!”
“It was a lady, sir,” remarked Bates, after we had
waited silently for a full minute.
“How clever you are!” I sneered. “I suppose ladies
prowl about here at night, shooting ducks or into people’s
houses.”
“It would seem quite likely, sir.”
I should have liked to cast him into the lake, but be
was already moving away, the lantern swinging at his
side. I followed him, back through the woodland to the
house.
My spirits quickly responded to the cheering influence
of the great library. I stirred the fire on the
hearth into life and sat down before it, tired from my
tramp. I was mystified and perplexed by the incident
that had already marked my coming. It was possible,
to be sure, that the bullet which narrowly missed my
head in the little dining-room had been a wild shot that
carried no evil intent. I dismissed at once the idea that
it might have been fired from the lake; it had crashed
through the glass with
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